Chapter Twelve

Elizabeth

"I wish we could stay with you," Jane said and squeezed Elizabeth's hand. They were seated out front, on the bench, and Lizzy watched as the carriage, which had finally arrived from the posting house where it had been abandoned days ago, came to a stop. She knew they had to leave, but she wished with every fibre of her being that they could stay a little while longer. She didn't want to make it harder on her sister.

"It is quite all right," she said with a forced smile. "I have our aunt here with me and I will see you in a few weeks for the…" She paused, and bit her lip before pushing out the word "wedding."

Jane glanced at Charles, who stood with his hands buried in his pockets, his head swaying from side to side slowly, as if contemplating the circumstances they found themselves in.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "it is my fault you are in this predicament. Had I not insisted upon calling on Pemberley the night of the storm, none of this would have happened."

Elizabeth took a deep breath. "I do not blame you. You wanted what was best. Given the circumstances, it was the only thing we could do. I do not hold a grudge, do not fear. It is regrettable that now not only am I going to be tied to Mr Darcy, but so are you. After the way he treated you, I felt it would be best if none of us ever had to see him again. That will not be possible," she sniffed.

"I always thought of Darcy as a sort of older brother. And now he will indeed be my brother through marriage. Now that he is, I can't help but wish it were not so." He extracted his hand, flicking it as if to get rid of a piece of lint.

The regrets and pain that accompanied these words hung in the air. Finally, it was Jane who ruptured the silence.

"Perhaps having you here will be a positive influence for him. It can't have been easy to be so isolated from the world for so long," she said,

Even in the direst circumstances and considering seemingly irrefutable evidence, Jane always continued to see the best in everyone. Charles swiftly recovered his usual affable personality, seemingly pushing his negative feelings away in like of Jane's good-natured appeal.

"Elizabeth, I will tell you the truth: when I received the news of the fire and the death of Georgiana, it plunged me into a lengthy period of melancholy. It was indeed dreadful so I can only imagine what Jane said is correct. The pain Darcy felt had to have been horrid. I struggled and I was not her brother. It was terrible."

"Did you know her well?" Elizabeth asked, eager to hear more about the woman who would have been her sister-in-law.

"I had known her most of my life and she was truly the sweetest person one could ever hope to meet outside of you, Jane," he said, and Elizabeth flashed a small smile at his tenderness.

"How old was she when she died?" Jane inquired.

Charles narrowed his eyes, and his lips moved as if he were trying to calculate the correct age, then he looked up. "Fifteen, a few days short of her birthday."

"So young," Elizabeth said. "The same age as Lydia. I can't imagine what it would be like for her to die at such a tender age."

"And if I daresay," Charles said, "Darcy was a lot closer to Georgiana than either of you are to Lydia. She and Darcy were very alike in many things, although she was softer than he, perhaps because she was unburdened by the responsibility placed upon him. Darcy was as much a brother as he was father and mother to Georgiana because he had to raise her. So for her to die while he was trying to rescue her…"

Elizabeth felt nauseous just thinking about it. "He tried to rescue her?" she asked. She hadn't heard the details of the story, part of her didn't want to, but another understood that she needed to have insight into her soon-to-be husband.

"From what I have heard, he rushed to her chamber when he found out about the fire but they were trapped in her chamber when the roof collapsed. Then a portion of the floor gave in, and they fell through to the ground floor where the fire had not yet reached. He survived, but Georgiana did not. I think the fact that he could not save her, is what caused him to be as he is now, more so than the scars. I knew he would blame himself, it is his nature to take such burdens on his shoulders. That is why I wanted to be there for him—though he chose to cut me off instead."

Elizabeth pondered this for a little while. It struck her that, like Jane, Charles had a seemingly infinite capacity for empathy, even towards those who had mistreated him. Even if he wanted to be angry and he could not sustain such feeling for very long. It was an admirable quality. She knew that she should take his lead when it came to keeping these things in mind.

"I truly think you being here may help him yet," Jane said. "Perhaps you can encourage him to go to church."

Elizabeth, who was not the sort who found a lot of comfort from listening to sermons, knew it helped others, and she wondered if Mr Darcy had ever attended Sunday service since becoming a recluse. Before they could discuss anything further, Charles clapped his hands together.

"I would like to stay longer, you know this, but if we have any hope of reaching Sheffield by nightfall, we must leave now."

Jane and Elizabeth nodded, and the sisters hugged before Charles bowed to her.

"We shall return here before the wedding," he promised. "And if he mistreats you in any way, you will send word. I will come back, and settle the score with him," Charles said. Elizabeth smiled, touched by his words although he idea of Charles settling the score with anyone was absurd. She recalled her father once saying Charles and Jane were both so kind-hearted they would be taken advantage of by all their servants for all eternity. He'd said it in jest, but there was some truth to it.

"It is good to have a brother in the family," she said finally. His cheeks coloured a little.

"I intend to be a good brother to all of the Bennet sisters. I promised your father when we were married."

"Thank you, Charles," she repeated, and then she knew it was time to part ways. She stood in the courtyard and watched as her family members entered the carriage, and soon, the carriage rolled out of sight. Just as the one containing her uncle had rolled out of sight not half an hour before that.

Elizabeth was at last alone, with only her aunt for company.

***

She made her way back inside the house and was about to go to her aunt's chamber to see how she was, when the smell of old burnt wood caught her attention. It led her in the other direction, to the part of Pemberley where the great fire had been. She hadn't gone in that direction before, finding it intimidating, but now there was an odd pull to it and she wanted to assuage her curiosity.

She wished to understand Mr Darcy better, and perhaps to do that, she had to find out more about the night that changed everything. It may be morbid, but she felt that the ruined part of the manor house perhaps held the answers. She had barely made her way down the hall when footsteps came after her. She turned to see the young man who seemed to serve a multitude of roles at Pemberley.

"Mr Lightower," she said, and stopped in her tracks.

"Miss Bennet," he said, a little out of breath. "I saw you coming this way, and I had to stop you immediately because you are not allowed. Mr Darcy does not like it when anyone comes up here."

"I am sure it is perfectly safe now. It must've all been inspected…" she said, thinking that the man's alarm stemmed from a concern for her physical safety.

"Everything is stable. There is still damage, and you might get hurt, but that is not why. Mr Darcy forbids anyone from coming here. That includes you, Miss Bennet. He gets awfully upset if anybody comes up here, and then we do not see him for days at a time."

Elizabeth bit the inside of her cheek but relented and followed Mr Lightower back down the stairs.

"Promise me you won't go back up there again," he said in a pleading tone. He was a kind-looking young man, perhaps a few years older than Charles, with a shock of unruly golden blonde hair and amber eyes.

The way he spoke indicated a certain apprehension of his master, but he didn't look like someone who was scared. She wondered, was his alarm more due to protectiveness over Mr Darcy than fear?

"I will not come up here again without seeking permission," she promised. She was, by nature, curious, but she knew now was not the time to explore this part of the house. Her plans having been thwarted, she made her way outside and into the garden instead.

Pemberley had multiple gardens. A wildflower garden that had been arranged around a large pond and a white gazebo, an herb garden that stood between the kitchen and the washhouse, and a rather lovely rose garden, which she had only seen in passing. It was there she headed now, the promise of the sweet-smelling roses, her favourite scent in the world and a source of her favourite perfume, beckoning her.

As she walked through the garden door and past two beautiful marble statues that stood like guardians on either side of the gate, she stopped. For sitting there, under the shade of a large tree and with a book in his hand, was none other than Mr Darcy.